ALBUM OF THE MONTH - JOURNEY IN SATCHIDANANDA - ALICE COLTRANE (1971)

Jazz meets harp meets raga.

Deeply groovy and psychedelic, Journey in Satchidanada is the fourth studio album by jazz pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane. A five track album of captivating spiritual jazz, it was written in 1970, three years after the death of her husband (and jazz icon) John Coltrane.

Alice Coltrane is joined by legendary saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, bassists Cecil McBee and Charlie Haden, drummer Rashied Ali, and Tulsi Sen Gupta on the tanpura (a four stringed instrument similar to the sitar).

Coltrane is of the few harpists in the history of jazz, but not the first to introduce the instrument to the genre - that was Dorothy Ashby, whose 1968 album, Afro-Harping, was very close to being this month’s album.

Trained as a pianist, it’s unknown how Alice became so skilled the harp - whether she took lessons or was self-taught. However it’s known that her full-sized Lyon & Healy concert harp arrived when she was struggling to look after her four young children after John’s death, having been ordered before his passing.

John and Alice Coltrane

It’s an album of grief and spiritual healing. Both of the Coltranes were interested in spirituality, but Hinduism became especially important to Alice during her grieving process.

After John’s death, Alice suffered from severe weight loss, insomnia, and hallucinations. Seeing her in turmoil, a musical colleague of hers introduced her to the yoga guru Swami Satchidananda (who this album is named after). After travelling to India and studying Hinduism under the guru during the early 1970s, Coltrane became a Hindu spiritual leader, establishing the Sai Anantam Ashram in California, where a young Doja Cat spent some of her childhood. The ashram was destroyed in 2018 due to wildfires.

Coltrane and Swami Satchidananda

The album's titular track, Journey in Satchidananda is a powerful opener. Heavy bass eases you in and acts as an anchor before it’s joined by the hypnotic, almost sudge metal droning of the tanpura. Then comes the harp, played like an eastern instrument, with trills and glissandos reminiscent of a Chinese guqin. Once Sanders’ sax kicks in, you're taken to another level.

Shiva-Loka is looser but still melodic. Drums and upright bass feature more heavily in this track, with the bass bowed towards the end. The title means ‘the realm of Shiva’, referring to Shiva, the ‘destroyer’ in the Hindu trinity. Darker undertones surface throughout the piece, tempered by the harp’s heavenly, luminous tone.

Stopover Bombay refers to a five-week stay in India and Sri Lanka that Coltrane was meant to go on in 1970. The track is much more bebop than the previous two, featuring Coltrane on the piano rather than the harp, with lush percussion from Ali. It’s closer to the lounge music of Ashby, but any sense of ‘easy-listening’ is counterbalanced by the sax.

Also featuring Coltrane on piano, Something About John Coltrane is based on themes by her late husband. According to an anonymous commenter on YouTube, the beginning of the swaggering bassline is based on Greensleeves - if you squint with your ears you can sort of hear it. Again, this piece is closer to more traditional jazz than the first two tracks, but the tanpura continues to drone on, lending a transcendental feel.

Isis and Osiris is only track not recorded in Coltrane’s home studio - it was captured live at the Village Gate club in Greenwich Village. It’s the most raga track on the album, but it also blends elements of North African and Middle Eastern music, with its inclusion of Vishnu Wood (who also worked with Dorothy Ashby) on oud.

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